OUR 2018 - 2019 SEASON

The Power of Memory and Imagination
in Modern Times

Last season, Spooky Action's plays stepped behind the scenes to experience the magical reality that animates our lives. For our 2018-2019 season, we travel in time and space to rediscover the power of memory and imagination and reflect on current issues that permeate our daily lives—the refugee and immigrant crisis; finding spirits past alive in the present; and a family’s willingness to embrace a radical notion of what's best for their children.
The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies
June 6 - 30, 2019
written by Sarah Ruhl
directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer
An American mother and a Tibetan father must make a life-altering choice that will test their strength, their marriage and their hearts. Two Tibetan monks seek their three-year-old son. The boy is the reincarnation of a revered Buddhist lama, and the monks propose to take the child away for a life of spiritual training in India.

​“The Oldest Boy is a richly emotional journey filled with music, dance, puppetry, ritual and laughter — Sarah Ruhl at her imaginative best,” says Artistic Director Richard Henrich. “A meditation on attachment and unconditional love, the play shows us a world in which the youngest children are sometimes also the oldest and wisest teachers.”

​Cast
*member, Actor's Equity Association


​Production Team
Stage Managers - Kate Kilbane
& Kathryn Dooley​
Assistant Director - Bridget Grace Sheaff
Set Design - Vicki R. Davis
Lighting Design - Max Doolittle
Costume Design - Julie Cray Leong
Sound Design - David Crandall
Props - Liz Long
Puppet construction - Matthew Pauli
Movement Director, Music and Cultural Consultant - Tuyet Thi Pham
​ASM - Olivia Viola
Production sponsored by Jeffrey P. Cunard
and Craig Pascal & Victor Shargai

About the Playwright

​Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. An alum of 13P and of New Dramatists, she won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006 and most recently, the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. She was the recipient of the PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright, the Whiting Writers award, the Feminist Press’ Forty under Forty award, and a Lilly Award. She proudly served on the executive council of the Dramatist’s Guild for three years, and she is currently on the faculty at Yale School of Drama. Her book of essays on the theater and motherhood, 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write, was a Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Artist Feature

Techung helped us out as an adviser on traditional Tibetan music for The Oldest Boy. Recordings of his music appear in the production. Now we have the opportunity to help preserve this beautiful, traditional art form. So head on over to Techung's fundraiser and show your support.

"This season we offer three unique plays that plumb the power of memory and imagination. In each play, memory and imagination do not simply recall the past, they create it. Following the characters, we step beyond the present place and time to connect with a moment lost. And with that moment found, become eternally renewed." 
–Artistic Director Richard Henrich

Spooky Action programming presented with support from
Share Fund
The John F. Kennedy Center's Kenan Fellowship Program
and the Julian R and Varue W Oishei Foundation
Our season is funded in part by  the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts